In Love and War

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Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning. Proverbs 9:9

Preface: This story is an exact depiction of the time that I spent with a very unique, very special turkey. The feelings and emotions that are reflected upon in this story were, and still are very real to me. This story takes me back in time and reopens wounds that, quite frankly, have yet to fully heal. Reading back through this story is something that is still very difficult for me, personally, because of the feelings and emotions that it causes to resurface. The ending is also not the ending that you will typically find in many of the turkey hunting stories that you will read. This story is long, but powerful, so stick with me. I hope that you enjoy, I hope that my words paint the picture well enough to move you in some of the ways that the experience did me, and most of all, I hope that there is something that you will find impactful and that you can take away from the recount of my time with “Slick”. 

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The word “belligerent” is derived from the Latin word bellum, for “war”. If one is eager to fight or loves war, then they are considered belligerents. This can be attached not to a need for a victorious outcome, but to the desire to simply be at war. Most dedicated turkey hunters could be considered belligerents. There comes a time in every turkey hunter’s career when they begin to enjoy the chase, the pursuit, or the battle with their foe, many times, even more than the actual victory itself, and the shot at the end simply becomes a necessary marker in the game.

There is no set time period at which this tends to begin for any one person, and, most likely, the period of time that this phase takes to initiate will differ for almost everyone. If you are unsure whether you have crossed this bridge in your career, then you probably have not. If you are still trying to see how many you can kill and how quickly, then you have not. If you have any level of anxiety around who carries the gun into the hunt with nagging wishes of any sort that it was you instead, then you have not. If the first thing on your mind sometimes even before you pull the trigger is to call and brag to your buddies, then you have not. If you are killing turkeys just so that you can post pictures on social media in an effort to manipulate people's perception of you, then go to your neighbors house, give them all of your turkey hunting stuff- shotgun included (I do not care if your neighbor is a retired animal rights activist) because not only have you not crossed the bridge, but you are on the wrong road altogether, and he deserves better than that- go buy yourself some golf clubs.  

If after playing the game and getting beat, fair and square, you cannot help but smile fondly in admiration of your foe, if the happiness you feel deep inside when you help someone else be successful is equal to or greater than when you pull the trigger for yourself, if you can count on one hand how many people you will tell after you claim a victory and do not care if the rest of the world ever finds out at all, then congratulations you have reached a very rewarding time in your career. Not that the need is no longer there to put the exclamation point at the end of your own sentences- I think it is necessary for many reasons for that desire to always be present. It’s just that you have finally come to realize why you have done this all along- to fight a fair battle on an even playing field, matching wits with nature’s most formidable foe, and loving simply being at war more than the victory itself. 

One.

It was the third morning of the season. I got out of the truck to a turkey gobbling a quarter mile from me in the black dark. I quickly finished my final preparations and headed toward him. The turkey was in an area with which I was very familiar. He was roosted in some mature bottomland hardwood around a hundred yards to the west of a thinned pine plantation. With the cover of darkness still in my favor, I walked the edge of the plantation toward the turkey’s position to my north. With every passing minute the daylight grew in the still dormant, open understory of the hardwood bottom exposing more of my movement along the edge of the plantation. Nearing two hundred yards from the gobbler’s tree, I elected to move out into the plantation to provide some additional cover for the last leg of my approach. As I reached a point perpendicular to his location, still out in the plantation, I turned west and headed directly toward the gobbling turkey.

Somehow, with the light still dim enough, I reached a tree that was no more than ten feet off of the trail that followed the edge of the timber change. My hiding spot had a downed pine limb, with brown needles still hanging, propped on the right side of the tree in front of me which made the perfect spot for me to nestle into and see out in the open hardwoods across the trail in front of me which continued past me to the north following along the edge of the plantation. Once I was situated, the turkey was gobbling at everything that made a sound, and I quickly noted the loud, commanding sound of his gobble. Another turkey gobbled in a tree between he and I, not over eighty yards from my setup and I immediately found him in the open canopy of a big water oak. I watched as he strutted on the limb, turning to face one side and then the other, raising his head each time the other turkey gobbled, but only gobbling every now and then and not nearly with the authority of the other turkey. Given the fact that I was so close to them in the tree, I had elected not to call until they were on the ground to prevent them spending all morning in the tree waiting for the hen that they could hear to walk under them in the open hardwoods. Before long, while it was still very dark on the ground, I saw the turkey that had been gobbling the most leave the limb, gliding from right to left, landing just off the edge of the woods road a hundred twenty yards, or so, to the north past my position, and the other turkey followed no more than twenty or thirty seconds later.

With all of the notable players on the ground, it was time for me to check in the ballgame. I yelped and clucked softly and was immediately rewarded with a gobble from the turkey with the big gobble. Several hens flew down near the pair of gobblers, and I could see bits and pieces of the group through the open understory as they assembled. I elevated my calling, and he answered nearly everything I threw at him. This went on for a couple of minutes, and I stopped calling to let him make the next move. The duo had a number of hens with them already which caused my confidence to waiver slightly, but only momentarily.

No more than a couple of minutes had passed since I had stopped calling when I saw the first of the two gobblers break into an opening and in a full strut. He only stopped for a second before he continued his approach angling toward my setup from left to right, and his roost mate followed not far behind. About the time the leader of the two reached the eighty-yard line, they both had stopped strutting and were making steps at a steady pace on track to walk right into the end of my gun barrel if their course did not change. They would stop every ten to twelve steps, study things for a couple of seconds, and continue their fast approach with a group of five or six hens in tow some thirty yards behind. The boss of the group was voicing her displeasure with their neglect with some loud almost constant yelping as she chased her two gobblers- almost in a trot. The lead gobbler crossed the twenty-yard line and never broke stride. There was an incline of maybe a foot, or so, at the shoulder of the trail, and when the lead gobbler stepped up on that high spot, I checked the trailing gobbler who was a few degrees off to the right and all other turkeys were further to the right from him. I pulled the trigger on the lead gobbler just as he stepped into the trail at twelve steps. The turkey melted into a heap on top of his tracks, as dead the instant the pattern of shot reached his head as his is at this very moment, never offering a flop.

Startled by the shot, the trailing gobbler pitched into the air about ten feet and landed only a few yards from where he had just been standing. Looking around, as the other members of his harem flew and ran for cover, he stood seemingly studying the situation, making no hasty moves at all. After processing things for a minute or so, the other gobbler carefully approached his fallen roost mate. If turkeys wore hats, I am certain that he would have removed his in reverence as he stepped to his side. Having gathered what appeared to be somewhat of an understanding of what had just taken place, the other gobbler started what seemed to be something that resembled a ceremony of sorts for his wing man. Reminiscent of a Haka performed by the Maori culture of New Zealand, this time done in pride and reverence for his fallen comrade. The big gobbler strutted around the other turkey lying dead at his feet and soon began to gobble his big, authoritative gobble that sounded more like a war cry, at this point. 

At times, he would walk away for a minute, stop, turn around, walk right back up and start again, seemingly as though he felt like he had not paid him the homage that he deserved. I took a video of some of this with my smartphone, and you can see a clip (which includes his big, authoritative gobble) here: 

Volume Up!

This took place for over twenty minutes, was absolutely incredible to witness, and was as fitting a celebration of life and salute to the fallen, as any I had ever witnessed. Though he would not get his name until later, that was the first time that I ever laid eyes on Slick. 

Two.

A day or two later, my dad and I were back in the area for an afternoon hunt. We were setup on the edge of the pine plantation overlooking the open hardwoods. We had been calling sparingly for the better part of an hour when we heard a turkey gobble out in the bottom directly to our front, several hundred yards away. The gobble was distinct- definitely the same turkey from my previous visit to the area.

There was a considerable amount of water in a shallow slough that laid between the turkey and our position, and we knew the likelihood of him crossing the water was relatively low. With no reasonable way to cross the water without him seeing us, we simply sat, called, and listened. Before long he appeared on the far edge of the slough following closely behind a handful of hens and a couple of jakes. He paced back and forth along the edge strutting for his hens. We called every now and then just to elicit a response to which he would cordially gobble most every time. When it came time to fly-up he did so in a tree along his edge of the slough, separated from his hens by a hundred yards, or so. We planned to be on that side with him the next morning.

The following morning, as he had in our previous meeting, the turkey started gobbling in the dark as dad and I were closing the final fifty yards, or so, on our setup. With plenty of darkness as cover, we closed to within a hundred yards of the roosted gobbler in the open hardwoods and setup in a thicket of palmetto nearby. His thunderous gobble at that range on the roost, where it seemed even louder, almost made you feel like he was scolding you for something, or yelling orders at everything around him. 

I have heard in the past some information presented by very highly experienced individuals that a turkey will adjust his gobble to varying lengths and volumes depending on his reason for gobbling at that moment. I cannot and will not speak to this. However, I have no reason not to believe them nor do said individuals have any reason to have their extensive knowledge called into question by someone of my limited brainpower. That being said, for the lot of the time that I spent around Slick and for whatever reason you wish to attach to it, his gobble was always big, loud, and authoritative. Just absolutely ground-pounding. Each one always sounded as if he dug his toes in, threw from the wind-up, and, with all he could muster, really let it rip. Like he really meant it with every fiber of his being. Every time. It was really downright impressive to hear in person.

After gobbling on the roost until daylight grew enough to see the ground around his tree, the turkey flew down ahead of us, basically right under his roost, and disappeared behind the screen of palmetto that provided us cover. In my mind, the palmetto played two roles from the perspective of our setup: 1. Most obviously, providing cover and 2. Creating a visual barrier that would hopefully force the gobbler to approach our setup to a point that would put him in shotgun range before he could confirm that there was no hen. The palmetto thicket had several gaps and holes ahead of our setup which allowed for good shot opportunities varying in distance from knife range out to thirty yards in one spot at the furthest.

We started calling to the turkey and he gobbled at nearly every call we made. The first to approach our setup was a small group of jakes. They passed by at close range in the palmetto thicket looking for the hen where the calling was coming from but not sticking around for very long before continuing past our setup. Then came a group of hens. They spent a good deal more time studying our position than did the jakes, but discovered nothing overly alarming and continued on past, as well. All this time, the gobbler was in a flat out in front of us strutting back and forth from around fifty out to about eighty yards and gobbling his roaring gobble at everything that made a sound above a whisper.

I knew that it was only a matter of time before he followed the rest of his court and came past our hide. We had stopped calling altogether by this point, it was his move. Soon, his drumming began to grow louder. The rest of his harem had approached from straight ahead and walked through our setup passing by on our left side, as this offered the most open, easy walking through the palmettos. Drumming can be tough to course, especially when the sound is coming from right on the edge the range of audibility. However, in this case, it became pretty apparent pretty quickly that he was not coming left. His drumming became much louder and easier to course telling me that the turkey was very close. I caught movement just beyond the palmettos ahead of me, working from left to right opposite the side the rest of the group had passed through.

Before it was over the turkey ended up directly to our right, on my side of our setup, thirty-five yards, and behind some low brush. After determining that there was no way for him to clear the brush to the either side and still be in range, I slowly eased up to my knees to allow for a clearer shot over the top of the obstruction. There was still a light amount of brush between us and though a shot would have very likely been perfectly and instantly lethal, I, ultimately, elected to pass.

Three.

A couple of days later on a Saturday morning, after not hearing any gobbling on the roost following a big rain the night before, I was setup between two big sloughs and to the northeast of where we had our last run-in. I was calling periodically as I sat watching the sun dry the woods. It was very near 8 A.M. and probably on my third or fourth calling sequence when he answered, two hundred yards to my five o’clock. I immediately adjusted around the big swamp chestnut that I was sitting beneath. I answered his gobble with another cut and yelp elevating the volume just slightly, and he gobbled right back. I was originally setup anticipating the turkey to come from the other direction. Moving around the tree had eliminated a lot of my cover, and the woods were very open in this direction. 

The turkey gobbled again, much closer this time, and I could tell by his gobble who it was. Soon I heard him drum just out of sight at about my ten o’clock, and, not thirty seconds later I caught a glimpse of his white head bobbing as he walked right down my gun barrel. He carefully approached, no more gobbling or strutting, and, given the dampness of the leaves under his feet, not making any audible noise whatsoever. 

Forty-five yards. He continued to approach, and I eased my safety off. The turkey stopped at what I now know was thirty-nine steps and raised his head, as I watched him over the bead on the end of my barrel. You could visibly see the suspicion growing around him as he surveyed the open woods ahead of him where he knew the hen he that heard should be standing. No more than five seconds passed- PUTT! Not seeing the hen was too much for his native caution, and he turned and walked at a steady pace back up nearly the same tracks he made on his approach, putting three or four more times as he made his exit. It was not until he was out of sight that my conscience asked me- why didn’t you shoot him? I did not have a good answer. Even though he was well within range, in the open, neck stretched to full length, I just did not pull the trigger and let him walk away- I could not answer why.

Four.

Only a week or so had passed until we met again. This time, with Slick strutting within thirty steps behind a tangle of vines and basically nowhere to go without me getting a clear shot, I elected to dispatch an intruder that had roosted nearby and was coming in the side door. You can read that entire story in detail here: The Perfect Situation

I saw Slick again before the end of the season. On the second to last day, I rounded a curve in the public road three-quarters of a mile to the south of where he could typically be found, and there he stood in the ditch of the public road. I had to stop to let him pass in front of my truck as he followed two hens across. I noticed the gobbler's very long beard and thought it resembled the one that Slick carried. I stopped a couple hundred yards up the road with hopes that he would gobble, and I could confirm. A few minutes later, he did. It was Slick.

The next morning, my dad and I parked about a quarter mile back down the public road and around a curve from where I had seen him the morning before. The plan was to break day where he crossed the road with hopes that he would be gobbling in the woods to the north and we could make a play on him from the direction that he already intended to go. Daylight came, and we were sitting beside a tree just across the road ditch waiting for him to gobble, but he never did. Finally, we decided he spent the night elsewhere and stood to move on. With our first substantial movement he flew out of the tree right over our heads. The sly devil had roosted right over the public road. “Man, that rascal is slick!” I told my dad admiringly as we walked back to the truck. Though I did not use it to properly reference him at first, that is where Slick got his formal name.  

The summer passed, and I actually saw him one time during the early fall of that year when I was moving a treestand between the sloughs where he stayed. He saw me just as I rounded the curve in the woods road and hurried away up the road and around the next curve ahead of me. I did not have to hear him gobble to know who it was, and I tipped my hat to him as I changed course to avoid bumping him any further.

Five & Six.

The next spring came, and my preseason trips to listen for early gobbles were coming in as mostly dry runs. However, I was not deterred. With obligations elsewhere on opening day and poor weather in the days that followed, I waited until the first good weather day to enter his territory in the dark and see if he was home. He answered an early crow in the grey light not over two hundred fifty yards from where I stood- which is just far enough to allow for maneuvers in an early season open river swamp. His gobble was just as big, loud, and commanding as I had remembered, and boy was I glad to hear it.

I found a big overcup oak, much wider than my shoulders with a small top lying in front of it which provided additional cover to my front. Not long after I got comfortable, he flew down into a flat out in the slough bed near where he was roosted but off the high bank and across the water from where I was setup. He was gobbling good, but I did not figure he would cross the slough and come to me. However, being on the high bank side, he could not just stand down there, gobble, and see that there was no hen on this side. He would have to come across to my side before he could visually verify the presence, or in this case absence, of a hen on my side.

He answered nearly every call that I made, and I elevated my level of aggression before ending my part of the conversation. He gobbled another three or four times and went quiet, as well. A minute or so later, I saw him pitch across the slough onto the high bank on my side, no more than a hundred fifty yards ahead of me. I raised my gun and soft yelped one time. He quickly answered and obviously started my direction made apparent by the growing volume of his gobble. The last time he gobbled he was no more than fifty yards, just beyond the crest of a slight drop in elevation ahead of me. I sat with my gun pointed in the direction of his gobble.

I could hear him drumming as he continued to approach, definitely growing louder with every repetition. I caught movement at my eleven o’clock. There he stood, forty-two steps, neck stretched looking through the open hardwoods around my position for the hen he had heard. I sat with my safety off, with only a slight correction to make into my hand, and he would be dead. He looked for as long as he could before being overcome by his keen suspicion. PUTT! He putted several times standing still and with still no hen showing herself; he turned to walk away looking over his shoulder putting every few steps as he retreated. 

He got back out about seventy yards or so and started gobbling again. I started back calling and soon it was apparent that he was circling my position. Around at about my nine o’clock, there was a big white oak recently blown down around twenty yards from where I sat. I listened as he continued to circle around that direction, and I saw him walk through a gap that I had in the understory just off the right side of the root ball of that downed tree, passing by about fifty yards away.

Once he was behind the deadfall, I crawled up toward him using the root ball and big fallen tree trunk for cover. I clucked and purred to go along with the leaves rustling beneath me as I crawled, and he was eating it up. When I reached the downed tree, I yelped again and he answered, sounding as though he was just on the other side. I peeked over and found him strutting just behind a tangle of vines no more than thirty yards away from my new position. 

He continued to answer my calls, and started coming left disappearing behind the big limbs in the top of the downed tree. Soon, I could see him through the top, strutting back and forth. I could see his feet, I could see his wing when he strutted, I could see his tail fan every now and then. I could see every part of him at some point or another except his head. He was too close for me to risk adjusting myself to get a different angle, and he would NOT come another two or three steps to the left and into the clear. After over five minutes of this, he lost interest, put the treetop and tangle of vines firmly between us and walked away, gobbling every two minutes, or so, as he left to go meet up with his hens.

Later that day I told those who knew of our relationship from the past, the story of “Slick” from that morning. I referenced him using his proper name really for the first time in those conversations. I did not have to explain to a single one of them who it was that I referred to. Everybody immediately asked the same question: “Why didn’t you shoot him!?” I could not square a viable answer in my mind for that question. It was not that I did not want to kill the turkey, because, even though I would have missed him being there, I most certainly wanted to kill him.

I never said it out loud, because I could not explain it then, and I still cannot explain it now, but there was a part of me that loved him. I loved the fight he put up. I loved the calculated way that he seemed to think. I loved that he would not just willingly throw himself into harms way, and that he made it apparent that he not only knew this game, but he understood it, and he played it well. I respected him as an adversary, and some weird part of me would like to think that he knew me, and that the respect was mutual. At least for a while.   

Slick was the absolute definition of a true, wet-footed river swamp gobbler. He wanted to be on the edge of the slough, on the edge of the backwater, on the bank of the river, etc. This is where he felt most at home. He preferred to roost there, and, unless manipulated otherwise, he liked to spend much of his time very near there. He liked to gobble early and often. He was meticulous and calculated. He was as worthy an adversary as I have ever come across, and I firmly believe that God used Slick to make me better. 

Turkeys don’t get names as easily as deer. When it comes to deer, with the use of modern trail cameras, bucks are relatively easy to monitor and differentiate between, making them easy to name so that you can call you buddies and tell them that you got pictures of “Bullwinkle” your “target buck”. With turkeys this is much different. Even with the use of trail cameras, many times it is difficult to differentiate between one gobbler and another without some glaring visual indicator in their appearance. Many times, a turkey earning a name is initiated by a particular turkey taking you to the whipping post on multiple occasions over some length of time, living to tell about it, and by all regards standing ready to do it again the next time you so choose. This was not always the case with Slick. He won his share of our battles, but I had won more than my fair share, as well, which is where I had done him the biggest disservice that I ever possibly could have. 

Over the course of our time, I had Slick in shotgun range a total of six times (I consider shotgun range forty-five yards or less). The first time, I had killed his comrade making him free and safe for the remainder of that day. The second, he was in a thick spot and though I almost certainly could have killed him, the odds were not 100%, so I elected to pass on the opportunity. The third, he walked up to thirty-nine steps right down my gun barrel, did not see a hen and began to putt. I willingly let him walk away that time in the broad open. The fourth, with Slick standing at less than thirty steps, I chose to save him from having to fight for his territory and killed the intruder coming in the side door. Both the fifth and sixth were the next season on the same morning, the fifth he again walked up, this time to forty-two steps, basically, right down my gun barrel in the open hardwoods, did not see a hen, smelled a rat, and turned, putted, and walked away without me firing a shot. Then I called him back to the end of a tree top half an hour later and could not get a clear shot at his head at twenty-five yards.

Those two, plus, times where I had Slick behind the bead of my shotgun, in range, and willingly let him walk away was the greatest act of defamation that I could have possibly inflicted on him. In those cases, I had won, fair and square, and it was my duty to claim proper victory over him and not insult him by making him walk away in defeat. I do not think he ever messed up. I like to think he did these things willingly. I like to think he attempted to concede to who he thought was a worthy adversary on multiple occasions until the final time when the insult was more than he could bare. Like being rejected by a prospective date to the senior prom and turning to settle for whatever date was available. Only in this case, he found somebody else to surrender to. He deserved better much than that, and I am so ashamed for having forced him to that place.

Goodbye.

The last morning that I ever went to Slick, I was in a hurry. I had to meet someone for work mid-morning, and I had a little drive to get to the meeting location. However, I knew he would be gobbling early, and I thought that I would go in there and see what happened right off the roost. If nothing else, I would sit, listen to his movement, and make a plan for that afternoon. 

I was near his bedroom the first time he answered an owl in the dim grey light, his booming gobble just as thunderous and authoritative as ever. I made careful steps in the gathering daylight closing in on his roost and picked a spot on the end of the slough not far from where I had neutralized the intruder a season before.

That morning he flew down away from me at an angle and into a big flat between my position and the river. Though he answered my calls, I could tell pretty quickly he was not coming, so I hushed after only calling a couple of times. He continued to gobble and began to make his way toward the river where I am certain he knew his hens to be. A quick check of my watch showed that there was no time for a move, as the time drew near for me to leave for work. I marked his current location on a map and started toward the truck. I could hear him gobbling steadily as I moved away, and after putting a couple hundred yards between us, I stopped to listen one more time before he was out of hearing. I turned around and focused my listening in his direction. Once my leaves got quiet and almost as if he was waiting for my attention, he gobbled his powerful gobble one last time, seemingly to say: Goodbye my friend. While there was no way for me to know at the time, Goodbye indeed it was.

That afternoon, I returned to the flat that he had flown to from the roost that morning. After an unproductive two hour sit, I heard a very definitive rolling boom from a shotgun a few hundred yards across the river, no more than five degrees off the heading that he was on when I left him that morning. I immediately knew it was Slick. I think the Lord wanted me to be there to hear it. I think He wanted me to know what happened to him in order to remind me that there are consequences for your actions, regardless of your intent. I returned to the area a couple of mornings after that just for closure, even though I did not need it. I knew he was gone. 

It had been nearly fifteen years since I had named a turkey. By and large, for a particular turkey, earning a name is not something that is come by easily. There are several boxes that must be checked before it is even taken into consideration. The advent of the name for Slick had, ultimately, signed his death warrant. No one lives in the past, but you do look back on events in life to examine what you would have changed in order to facilitate learning moving forward. When it comes to the story of Slick, if I had skipped ahead to the conclusion and known the outcome from the very beginning, I think I still would have read the book from cover to cover without skipping a single word. Belligerent? Call me what you will. However, if you are a friend, family, or an acquaintance of mine, and you hear me even mention it again, please don’t ever let me name another dadgum turkey.

This one’s for you Slick. I am blessed and honored to have known you. Rest easy my friend.